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A video showing the beheading of an American in Iraq was posted on an al-Qaeda-linked web site, a gruesome killing which Islamic militants claimed was carried out to avenge the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US troops.

The American general who authored a damning report on US troops' mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib told a congressional panel Tuesday meanwhile there was no evidence of a policy or direct order for the misconduct.

Major General Antonio Taguba spoke in Washington as the head of Iraq's war crimes tribunal said ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein would be handed over to Iraq before the country's sovereignty is restored on June 30.

In other key developments, US President George W Bush slapped sanctions on Syria, partly for "undermining" US efforts in Iraq, as wanted Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr offered to end his rebellion in Iraq if the US-led coalition agreed to talks.

The bloodshed continued as a US soldier was killed in Iraq's Al-Anbar province and US forces said they had killed 13 members of Sadr's militia.

"We did not find any evidence of a policy or a direct order given to these soldiers," General Taguba said in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, as the fallout from photos showing US soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees continued.

"I believe that they did it on their own volition and I believe that they collaborated with several (military intelligence) interrogators at the lower level" he said. "We didn't find any order whatsoever, written or otherwise, that directed them to do what they did."

Vice President Dick Cheney said that a "fundamental breakdown" had led to the Iraqi prison abuse by US troops but defended the military response to the scandal.

A group of senators will view unpublished photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners on Wednesday, according to Republican Senator John Warner.

The head of Iraq's war crimes panel, Salam Chalabi, said at Kuwait airport that Saddam will go on trial early next year with scores of his closest henchmen.

"We have a hundred detainees (who were) senior leaders of the former regime, including Saddam Hussein, Tareq Aziz and Ali Hasan al-Majid," Chalabi said.

Bush in a statement accused Syria of "supporting terrorism, continuing its occupation of Lebanon, pursuing weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, and undermining US and international efforts with respect to the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq."

The new sanctions include a freeze on certain Syrian assets in the US and limits on exports of goods, including weaponry.

Speaking to the press in Damascus, Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Naji Otri labelled the sanctions "unjust and unjustified."

Meanwhile, Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, offered to end his insurgency if the US-led coalition agreed to negotiations, according to leaflets handed out by his office in the central holy Iraqi city of Najaf.

"I am ready to end everything if the occupation forces officially ask for negotiations on condition that these negotiations are just and transparent and under the stewardship of the Shiite religious authorities," said a statement signed by Sadr.

His banned Mehdi Army militia has suffered heavy losses during running battles with US-led troops in the capital Baghdad and in central Shiite cities.

US forces said they killed 13 members of Sadr's militia in a clash outside Kufa near the holy city of Najaf.

However, the US inquiry into events at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, which has revealed shocking photos of Iraqis being sexually humiliated and abused by US soldiers, continued to stir concern around the globe.

Taguba, who submitted his findings to the Pentagon in January, said "failure in leadership, from the brigade commander on down" at the Abu Ghraib facilitated the abuse by US guards who had been left without discipline, training or supervision.

"At the end of the day, a few soldiers and civilians conspired to abuse and conduct egregious acts of violence against detainees and other civilians outside the bounds of international law and the Geneva Convention," Taguba said.

Bush has strongly backed his embattled Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld amid calls for his resignation over the Abu Ghraib scandal.

British troops, who control southern Iraq, were criticised in a new report by Amnesty International which accused them of shooting civilians where there was no apparent threat, including an eight-year-old girl who was fatally wounded.

Violence continued here less than two months before the planned return of Iraqi self-rule as US forces stepped up the pressure on Sadr, who is holed up inside Najaf where he is wanted over the murder of a rival cleric last year.

A senior State Department official identified the slain American in the video as Nicholas Berg, a businessman from Pennsylvania who had been missing in Iraq since mid-April.

Berg was decapitated with a large knife, according to US networks which did not show his death but described it as horrific.

Berg's body was found by the side of a road near Baghdad at the weekend.

The tape on the Islamic militant web site with links to al-Qaeda was reportedly titled "Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi slaughtering an American", referring to the wanted al-Qaeda agent.

The death of the US soldier in Al-Anbar province raises the death toll of American soldiers since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March last year to 775, according to Pentagon figures.

The first Dutch soldier of the country's 1 260-strong contingent died of his wounds from a grenade attack in the southern town of Samawa. - Sapa-AFP

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